Sometimes I've Believed as Many as Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Month: June 2014

I didn’t go to private school; most of the Latin I know is from Harry Potter. When I hear the word radiculopathy, I snigger because it reminds me of the defensive spell one must utter in the presence of a Boggart*
Doctors are taught to provide care based on evidence. We are people of science. But sometimes we are more than that. Sometimes the care a patient needs isn’t about the facts. Sometimes the most important thing we can give to a patient relies on the quality of humanity.
Humanity means kindness, compassion, consideration, tolerance and so much more then I could ever hope to define or fully understand. Nobody will tell you the world of a junior doctor is glamorous. Often it’s about long shifts, missed sleep, new guidelines, overdue assessments, discharge letters and paperwork. There have been days, when knee deep in revision notes and highlighter pens, the thought “F#*K this I should have gone to Hogwarts” came to mind. These are the days I need to feel the humanity in what I do.
I am of course first and foremost a person of science. But I am also grateful that sometimes medicine is about the indefinable. Sometimes it is about the magic.